MIflyer
1st Lieutenant
There was a PBS show on TV a few nights ago on bombing the Auschwitz concentration camp. It described how a couple of Jewish men escaped from Auschwitz in April 1944 and described the operation of the place to the Allies. That began a discussion of the possibility of bombing the camp. They quickly concluded that the USAAF would be the only force capable of handing the mission. It would have to be a daylight mission, and since Auschwitz is in Poland it was far beyond the range of anything but heavy bombers. Churchill initially was in favor of the bombing but never pressed it, and of course the RAF could not have done it anyway. Needless to say, in April 1944 the Allies had targets fare more vital than Auschwitz.
In the end the decision was not made to bomb the place, although the USAAF did hit it later, that was due to a navigational mistake. Their actual intended target was the IG Farben chemical factory 5 MILES AWAY. That attack killed a few prisoners and 15 SS guards.
On the TV show some modern day commentators and analysts said that the camp should have been bombed as an expression of "moral outrage." They did not seem the least bit bothered that such an attack would have killed thousands of innocent prisoners; I guess the figured they were all good as dead anyway. I do not think we have ever got to the point where killing innocent prisoners as an expression of outrage is acceptable to our military. And how many of our own people would we be willing to lose to display "moral outrage?"
Back in the summer of 2001 a lawsuit was filed in Federal District Court, District of Columbia, against the United States on the basis that the USAAF could have bombed the rail lines leading to Auschwitz to shut the place down. It appears that the people at the law firm that filed that suit could neither read a map nor knew diddly squat about WWII airplanes. Once again, heavy bombers on a daylight raid would have been the only way to hit those rail lines and the USAAF did not do high altitude bombing of rail lines when they wanted to destroy the railroads. They could not see the rail lines from altitude; they aimed for cities. For the October 1943 raid on Munster the objective was the railroad marshaling yards. The 8th AF aiming point was the city's cathedral, not because they had anything against churches but because the bomb pattern would spread back from the cathedral onto the rail yards and the associated housing for the people who worked there.
So, if you want to take out the rail lines leading to Auschwitz you first figure out which Polish cities and villages you want to flatten in order to do that; that's the only way to find the rail lines from 25,000 ft, even in daylight.
The book "The Bombing of Auschwitz" raises the possibility of doing a precision strike against the creamatoriums. One option might have been an approach used against the Ploesti oil facilities. A large force of P-38's some serving as escort with others equipped with one bomb and one drop tank, staged out of Italy refueled on a tiny island in the Adriatic and then flew to hit the oil targets. Presumably something similar could have been done to
dive bomb Auschwitz targets or the rail lines more selectively, although the Ploesti mission was not exactly a rousing success and teh P-38 pilost described it as a hair-raising experience. Aside from that, I don't see how destroying crematoriums would keep the Nazis from killing people.
Some today say that the refusal of the USAAF to hit the rail lines or Auschwitz targets was an example of anti-semitism. I think it was because the leaders were focused on winning the war rather than demonstrations of "moral outrage." But as the old saying goes, nothing is impossible for the man who does not have to do it himself.
In the end the decision was not made to bomb the place, although the USAAF did hit it later, that was due to a navigational mistake. Their actual intended target was the IG Farben chemical factory 5 MILES AWAY. That attack killed a few prisoners and 15 SS guards.
On the TV show some modern day commentators and analysts said that the camp should have been bombed as an expression of "moral outrage." They did not seem the least bit bothered that such an attack would have killed thousands of innocent prisoners; I guess the figured they were all good as dead anyway. I do not think we have ever got to the point where killing innocent prisoners as an expression of outrage is acceptable to our military. And how many of our own people would we be willing to lose to display "moral outrage?"
Back in the summer of 2001 a lawsuit was filed in Federal District Court, District of Columbia, against the United States on the basis that the USAAF could have bombed the rail lines leading to Auschwitz to shut the place down. It appears that the people at the law firm that filed that suit could neither read a map nor knew diddly squat about WWII airplanes. Once again, heavy bombers on a daylight raid would have been the only way to hit those rail lines and the USAAF did not do high altitude bombing of rail lines when they wanted to destroy the railroads. They could not see the rail lines from altitude; they aimed for cities. For the October 1943 raid on Munster the objective was the railroad marshaling yards. The 8th AF aiming point was the city's cathedral, not because they had anything against churches but because the bomb pattern would spread back from the cathedral onto the rail yards and the associated housing for the people who worked there.
So, if you want to take out the rail lines leading to Auschwitz you first figure out which Polish cities and villages you want to flatten in order to do that; that's the only way to find the rail lines from 25,000 ft, even in daylight.
The book "The Bombing of Auschwitz" raises the possibility of doing a precision strike against the creamatoriums. One option might have been an approach used against the Ploesti oil facilities. A large force of P-38's some serving as escort with others equipped with one bomb and one drop tank, staged out of Italy refueled on a tiny island in the Adriatic and then flew to hit the oil targets. Presumably something similar could have been done to
dive bomb Auschwitz targets or the rail lines more selectively, although the Ploesti mission was not exactly a rousing success and teh P-38 pilost described it as a hair-raising experience. Aside from that, I don't see how destroying crematoriums would keep the Nazis from killing people.
Some today say that the refusal of the USAAF to hit the rail lines or Auschwitz targets was an example of anti-semitism. I think it was because the leaders were focused on winning the war rather than demonstrations of "moral outrage." But as the old saying goes, nothing is impossible for the man who does not have to do it himself.
